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By Root 1362 0

seeing the world before them through the most advanced visualization equipment available. In Afghanistan, TF-Brown flew the MH-47D and MH-47E Chinooks, comprehensively modified conventional CH-47 Chinooks (hence the M designation) giving the craft higher speeds (faster than even attack helicopters), extended range, and heavier armaments and more robust onboard defense systems, among a number of other attributes. Wood saw TF-Brown as the vital cornerstone for his mission concept’s success. But the 160th fell under SOF rules, and therefore, by doctrine, the Night Stalkers couldn’t theoretically support ⅔. But Wood felt that CJSOTF-A could make a reasonable exception, as he wasn’t seeking to control a ground SOF element, but an aviation support unit. The operations officer, fiercely devoted to the young enlisted “trigger puller” Marines who would carry out his plans, had to formulate a mission that was tactically rock solid from a command and control perspective, but one where the Marines who would undertake the actual operation would have the best available chances of success and survivability. The OpsO would have to scrap his plan for a conventional-forces-only operation and begin anew with a plan that utilized TF-Brown—but to what extent would he be forced to compromise the rigid command and control structure he knew to be vital to get support from the 160th? As the days ticked away and the intel on Shah trickled in, he would find his answer.

That intel trickle would roar to a torrent of information—actionable, specific information—that would allow Wood to finalize his plan within just a few weeks. ⅔’s main element had wasted no time jumping into the campaign throughout their respective provinces as they arrived in Afghanistan, keeping at least 50 percent of the Marines of each base on patrols at all times—through the mountains, in the towns and villages of the provinces, sleeping, eating, and living with the Afghans themselves. And while sophisticated SIGINT mechanisms churned away for Westerfield, his big payoff came as a dividend of this outside-the-wire mind-set when Second Lieutenant Regan Turner, commander of Whiskey Company’s Second Platoon, ventured into the village of Khewa, about ten miles northeast of Jalalabad in the Kuz Kunar district of Nangarhar province in mid-June, just after the official turnover of authority to ⅔ from 3/3. Turner, a quick-witted and disarming officer whose natural charm transcends pretty much all language and cultural barriers, scored what would be the first of a small number of pivotal interviews with credible intel sources during a meeting with elders in the small village. Removing his flak jacket, ballistic glasses, and helmet to best engage the elders at the shura meeting through eye contact and nonintimidating body posturing, Turner and his interpreter sat and drank tea with the locals as the group went through rounds of introductions.

About thirty minutes into the meeting, Turner met a man named L.C. (his actual name omitted for security reasons) who proudly stated that he fought the Soviets as a mujahideen and then took up arms against the Taliban—whom L.C. despised so much that he sacrificed three years with his family in order to fight against the much-hated group. Regan, a diligent student of the region’s history, smiled that he was now sitting face-to-face with a warrior who not only helped fend off the Communists, but fought against those who willfully harbored Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks. Taking a very easy, relatively passive approach to his HUMINT work (at first), Turner didn’t ask L.C. a single intel question during their introduction—and as it turned out, he didn’t have to: within a minute of their meeting each other, the former mujahideen uttered the words that Regan wanted to hear more than any others: Ahmad Shah. Westerfield had instructed Turner to be on the lookout for anything and everything on Shah, whom the intel officer personally considered to be a high value target, but warned the lieutenant that he might not hear as much as a peep about him from